Quotes of the day

posted at 10:41 pm on March 7, 2013 by Allahpundit

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul has friends all over the spectrum — from establishment conservatives to the freewheeling libertarian devotees of his father — after a nearly 13-hour filibuster of John Brennan’s CIA nomination on Wednesday. He’s also managed to make two of the Senate’s most establishmentarian figures, John McCain and Lindsey Graham, look like outliers, and Republicans are privately grumbling about them…

“This marks [Paul’s] arrival as a serious national figure in the Republican party, said Steve Schmidt, McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign manager, who said Paul would be a “formidable candidate” in 2016…

“It was one of the first examples in a long time of messaging that made the base feel like we had control of the day,” said Rick Wilson, a Florida-based Republican strategist. “Rand Paul’s stock price rose sharply today, and being the guy who set Obama on his heels — even for a day — will pay dividends for Paul in the short term, at least.”…

By the time the 2016 Republican presidential race rolls around, the Paul filibuster will be a distant memory — even to the grassroots of the party. But, the motivation behind the filibuster — a combination of genuine conviction and a sense for the dramatic — will still burn strongly in Paul.

It’s why we continue to believe no one should underestimate Paul’s ability to have a major impact on the 2016 race. While his beliefs — particularly on foreign policy — are outside the mainstream of current Republican thought, Paul will get points among the base for actually believing what he says.

***

Republicans off Capitol Hill clearly were using Paul’s filibuster to their political advantage. It instantly galvanized the warring factions of the Republican Party in a fight against Obama, including the NRSC and the Tea Party Patriots, two groups that have been at odds in recent years over GOP candidates in Senate races. Both were quick to call on their supporters to unify behind Paul.

“People appreciate that someone is finally standing up and playing hardball with the president and his administration,” said Greg Mueller, a Republican strategist. “The party has been far too much seen as a party of capitulation and deal-making with a radically liberal president. Conservatives, tea party, mainstream Republicans want a fighting opposition party in Washington.”

***

Fueled in large part by support from a Twitter political class that flexed its muscles on policy issues, Republicans rallied around Paul in a way that hasn’t been seen on the national stage in years and could provide a glimmer of hope for a listless party.

“There was a hell of a lot of team play tonight,” a senior GOP leadership aide said Thursday morning, acknowledging that Paul’s filibuster had given the GOP a much needed jolt of energy. “Everybody’s in a three-point stance, helmets on and ready to fight,” the aide said.

***

The pace of politics and policy is mind-blowing. Paul is a junior senator from Kentucky, a darling of the tea party and libertarians who thrives on the margins of the political establishment. And yet he was able to cow the White House by harnessing Twitter and other social media to rally public support. Sen. John McCain, a Republican from another era, sniffed at Paul’s appeal to young voters in “dorm rooms.” Like the anti-piracy legislation thwarted by online activists last year, the Paul drone filibuster may mark a turning point in American activism. For better or worse, public opinion is now more democratized than ever.

Paul is a force. What started as a Paul-only affair quickly turned into an after-midnight gathering of GOP senators who were literally summoned to Capitol Hill by supporters via Twitter and e-mail. This burst of exposure and influence will help Paul’s prospects for 2016, when he could seek the GOP nomination and, possibly, as many Republicans fear, divide the party.

***

GLENN: A man who is I believe going to be the logical choice for president of the United States because he is reasonable, polite, and a ‑‑ I believe in a teaching mode right now, teaching the American people, not throwing around firebombs, not calling anybody names but speaking about principles, and the principles are those basic human rights that we all know naturally we’re born with. One that he spoke about last night, the right to live and to have a trial and to have a warrant, not just be killed, gunned down in the streets, or in this case killed by a drone because this president or any president says, “Yeah, take him out.”

***

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Stroke of political genius. He will be remembered. This raises his image, and he’s completely sincere about this. This will be a moment that people will say has launched him as a national figure.

***

Paul chipped away at the Democratic Party’s monopoly on romance yesterday. His actions broke through traditional firewalls that keep politics out of the homes of the nation’s marginally interested voters. He showed that the struggle for personal freedom is an idealistic pursuit. For a moment, the pervasive cynicism that has hardened voting patterns over the last two decades melted away. The political class will miss it, but the apolitical citizenry who could care less for what a consultant or a pundit says or thinks will not. The shift that Paul’s actions have ushered in will not remain imperceptible for long.

***

The left and right Twittersphere lavished Paul with praise for his integrity (which, I guess, is what you could call it coming from a man who has questioned the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act and Medicare). But at a certain point, Paul refused to take yes for an answer. The CIA doesn’t operate the military drones, so holding up Brennan’s appointment didn’t make sense. And I suspect Paul didn’t want to hold up, say, a defense authorization, which would have not been as popular. Attorney General Eric Holder’s response wasn’t as absolutist as Paul wanted, but it did make it clear that drones were not going to whack people out of the blue in Los Angeles, Houston, and Bowling Green, Kentucky, as Paul cited last night in a nod to his home state. At a certain point, you have to take yes for an answer, and if you don’t, then you’re engaging in the kind of lamentable politics you seem to disdain.

***

It was heartening to see Republicans — several joined the filibuster — take the initiative and put the administration on the defensive, but Paul’s filibuster was an ambling affair. Chalk it up to having to talk for hours on end. Paul’s case against the targeted killing of American citizens designated as terrorist combatants marshaled rhetorical support from sources as diverse as our own Kevin D. Williamson and hard-left scold Glenn Greenwald, broke the proscription on reductio ad Hitlerum early and often, and included lengthy and occasionally insightful excurses on everything from counter-majoritarianism to Alice in Wonderland to the French Revolution…

Holder told Senator Ted Cruz at a Judiciary Committee hearing — after persistent questioning — that attacking on our soil an American citizen who is an enemy combatant in the absence of such a threat would be unconstitutional. We are not sure he is right about that. It would be possible to craft extreme scenarios — involving invasions, domestic insurrections, or other outlandish circumstances — in which such an attack would pass muster. But we would be testing the boundaries of the plausible, and of the Constitution…

The Rand Paul filibuster was great entertainment and will probably mark a new stage in his emergence as a national figure. We salute his brio, even if we suspect he is ultimately fighting a phantom menace.

***

Asked why more Democrats didn’t come to Paul’s aid, Sen. Max Baucus of Montana said, “Each has his own view. To be honest, I haven’t been focused as much on that issue, an da lot of others probably haven’t either. I assume that’s the reason.”

“There was a sense the Paul filibuster was a distraction from the real issues of privacy and civil liberties, and was just not an issue worth spending an entire day on in the Senate,” said the Democratic staffer. “When Senators are getting ready to break ranks, you feel these tremors before it actually hits, and we didn’t hear any of that yesterday.”

***

Where Rand Paul led, other Republicans followed: some out of conviction, some out of opportunism, and some out of fear.

Since 2008, the party has executed a huge about-face on issues of executive power and national security. Yesterday marked an important pivot in that complex maneuver. I worry it won’t be the last…

Something more than ordinary partisanship is driving this switcheroo. The alienation and fear to which Rand Paul spoke in the Senate yesterday – the alienation and fear that shapes the political environment to which Marco Rubio and Mitch McConnell must adapt – comes from some deeper and more tangled place than disappointment at the outcome of an election.

Executive assassinations, hyperinflation leading to populist dictatorships, ordinary Americans protecting themselves by launching insurgencies against the state – these are themes of Rand Paul’s politics, now endorsed by his Republican Senate colleagues. Out of what doom-haunted imagination are such dark fantasies born? The Republican party used to be the party more serious about defending America. Now it provides a home to those more doubtful that America is worth defending.

“I think our party needs something new, fresh and different,” he said. “What we’ve been running — nothing against the candidates necessarily — but we have a good, solid niche in all the solidly red states throughout the middle of the country.”…

“I don’t think you can underestimate how big of a moment this was. If the Iowa Caucuses were tomorrow, he would win in a landslide,” said conservative talk radio host Steve Deace, who lives in Iowa. “Imagine taking what Scott Walker did in Wisconsin and combining it with what Mike Huckabee did with Chick-fil-A, that’s how big this is.”

I missed a good part of last night’s debates on the QotD thread…was just skimming, while listening to the wonderful filibuster, and multi-tasking in addition. I did skim some more this a.m. and commented too, that you were all wonderful, in spite of disagreements. It was a great night in America and on HA. I loved the exchange of idease, toward the same aim. It’s sometimes rough, but we are free to express, still.

I am saying that at this point, no. It will take much more. If he continues to be consistently on the side of Americans, rather than a party, then yes. He is am upstart, so was Obama. He is a speaker, so is Obama. For good or ill, Obama electrified the country, not just the extreme left. The politics and principle didn’t matter near as much as the aura.

After this mistake is on it’s last couple years, the electorate will examine what’s next. Convinced that voters will be more intuitive rather than reactionary, I believe we will select a principled leader. Rand Paul might be that leader. I just refuse to lend myself to excitement or fandom of an elected official based only on a half a day of talking over something that in my mind, was inconsequential. Not on principle but application. I know that many people think the length of the filibuster commands attention, though the White House would have provided the same answer whether it took 13 seconds or 13 days.

My opinions are reflective of my experience and thought and in no way detract from the noble actions of Rand Paul or anyone else who loves their country. My simple answer to electability is, probably not. But maybe in time. The dynamics of republican and conservative disadvantages in the current and foreseeable elections are numerous and significant. Rand Paul was a gentleman yesterday. Beyond that…

I missed a good part of last night’s debates on the QotD thread…was just skimming, while listening to the wonderful filibuster, and multi-tasking in addition. I did skim some more this a.m. and commented too, that you were all wonderful, in spite of disagreements. It was a great night in America and on HA. I loved the exchange of idease, toward the same aim. It’s sometimes rough, but we are free to express, still.

I have to remark that Paul, Cruz, and some others to a lesser degree, are receiving great praise for standing firm, particularly about defending the Constitution. People like most of us have been screaming for years for someone to show some freakin leadership and belief in the principles this nation was founded on. Take a good look at our “leaders” who have been there for decades and just rolled with it. I hope their time is passing.

I missed most of it, myself. However, the part I did see tended toward the same goal: Taking the ability away from Obama to define the use of drones and force on his own terms, and seeing that regulation of that power is well defined, strictly enforced, and subject to oversight by congress.

I’m hopeful, given the direction the debate has taken since yesterday, that we will see that goal made material. I am now certain that neither Holder, nor Obama, will be able to make that determination and that task will, instead, fall to congress, as it should. That, in itself, makes it a remarkably good day.

…no one is sneezing!…can’t you see us?…we’re all bowing down…it’s like a reverse of THE WAVE at a stadium…from one end of the country to the other…I didn’t bow quick enough when it came back from the right…and got slapped down!

Rand Paul is highly electable because of his authenticity and everyman charm. The dems have never seen a republican like this, in that he breaks all the molds that they have conditioned themselves to bring the attack against.

Okay RWM is gonna post the, “Mr. Messina Goes Down To D.C.”, as soon as she has a song to go with it. I’ll post it after she does, but if they ban both of us, promise you’ll help get us reinstated. ; )

McCain is worse than “fundamentally flawed” in the political sense. There has always been something very wrong with his character, which is one of extreme “me-first-and-only” self-entitlement. He was wrongfully admitted to the Naval Academy with bad grades ahead of more qualified applicants because his daddy and granddaddy were admirals. Rules that apply to ordinary people don’t apply to him. He thumbed his nose at Annapolis because he couldn’t be kicked out or flunked out, because he was JOHN MCCAIN, son and grandson of ADMIRALS. He ignored orders and crashed planes, because he couldn’t be disciplined as the son and grandson of admirals. He ditched the wife who stood by him, when he wanted a rich blonde chick young enough to be his daughter, who could finance his political ambition.

He was caught taking bribes to his wife from the Keating 5, so tried to cover his tracks by imposing the McCain-Feingold nonsense on everyone else (laws only apply to everyone else, not to JOHN MCCAIN). He entertained a blonde lobbyist in ways that worried his staff, and improperly pressured the FCC for her in exchange for …., because he is JOHN MCCAIN!!!!!!. He yelled obscenities at other senators who questioned ramming his McCain-Kennedy amnesty through the Senate in the dead of night without debate, and screamed he knew more about it than anyone else – because he is JOHN MCCAIN, a legend in his own mind !!!!!! He has had secret no press allowed meetings to praise Mexico as our dearest friend and closest neighbor, calling enforcement of the laws “Rhetoric”.

As president, McCain, like the man he helped elect. Barack Obama, would have tried to rule by fiat and would make Hugo Chavez look like George Washington. Like the Alice in Wonderland Queen of Hearts, if any GOP congresscritter disagreed with him “OFF WITH HER HEAD- I’m JOHN MCCAIN, KING OF THE UNIVERSE!!!” There has always been something consistently very wrong with McCain’s character. Through it all, this lying unreliable self-aggrandizing megalomaniac poses as a “straight talker”, and is so sick, he probably believes it himself, because he is JOHN MCCAIN !!!!!!!!!!!!, son and grandson of ADMIRALS.

I do think we’ll have more to choose from in 2016 and hopefully, we’ll have some good ones in the group.

In President Reagan’s Farewell Speech he gave us a warning that many didn’t heed.

Finally, there is a great tradition of warnings in Presidential farewells, and I’ve got one that’s been on my mind for some time. But oddly enough, it starts with one of the things I’m proudest of in the past 8 years: the resur- gence of national pride that I called the new patriotism. This national feeling is good, but it won’t count for much, and it won’t last unless it’s grounded in thought- fulness and knowledge.

…Our spirit is back, but we haven’t reinstitutionalized it. We’ve got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom–freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It’s fragile; it needs [protection].

So, we’ve got to teach history based not on what’s in fashion but what’s important…

One thing Obama did was wake some people up to start reading the Constitution again.

And as far as Rand, Mike Lee, Ted Cruz and others worked to give us some informed patriotism yesterday, what they did was a great thing. We needed the lift of hearing voices on that Senate floor talk about who we are as a nation.

It’s not a thick skin issue. I’m a big enough boy. It’s more annoyance that if you stop being a cheerleader for a minute, you must explain yourself immediately.

Rusty Allen on March 7, 2013 at 11:49 PM

Number one, you don’t have to explain yourself to anyone. That is a choice. Number two, I think something specific has been bugging you for a few days at least. Just my guess, and saying it as a friend. Your boda fides are well established.

I spend most of my time with 20somethings. These are mostly college-educated, minority, and lax on social issues save hemp. Since 2010, whenever politics comes up, I point them to Rand.

They’re willing to hear him because of Ron. So to take up the issue of the prison planet was hitting the sweet spot.

Until the Bushes and the Military Addicts get involved, Paul is on a collision course with Hillary. If anything, Paul could cost Hillary the nomination, because he creates an opening for someone on the Dem side to run pacifist to her hawk.

Right now, everyone who is opposed to Paul only builds his credibility. If Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rove come out against him, Jeb won’t even get to Iowa.

That last link is blank. I remembered we could only do three at a time but had already typed the period.

Bmore on March 7, 2013 at 11:52 PM

Where is the McCain one? Good work sir, you are very creative.

McCain is one miserable @#$%%^&^&&er. Caused nothing but trouble since at least 00.
It dawned on me today. Not only does he disagree with Rand Paul but he can’t stand the fact that someone else might get attention besides him and his ball washer Linthy.

It’s not a thick skin issue. I’m a big enough boy. It’s more annoyance that if you stop being a cheerleader for a minute, you must explain yourself immediately.
Rusty Allen on March 7, 2013 at 11:49 PM

I’ve been around here a long time and am a bit like you, I suspect. March to my own drum, don’t exactly fit well into all the required categories at times, and get really bored in echo chambers. I’ve found that most of the posters here accept that after they know you. I try to be a little careful in how I word my disagreements. If it gets on my nerves too much, I go to the Belmont Club site.